Rumored NCAA Changes

According to Zoo Tennis, "changes are believed to be reduction of doubles to a six-game set, with the singles decided in a a super tiebreaker if there is a split, with the goal of shortening the matches." Does anyone else think this is ridiculous!?

According to Zoo Tennis, "changes are believed to be reduction of doubles to a six-game set, with the singles decided in a a super tiebreaker if there is a split, with the goal of shortening the matches." Does anyone else think this is ridiculous!?

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don't even think i could bring myself to follow college tennis anymore if that foolishness came into effect

two sets is not a tennis match

grinding, physical third sets are what it's all about

and you think cheating in college tennis is bad now? what about when half the matches at NCAAs are decided by a few points in a supertiebreak...god help us

According to Zoo Tennis, "changes are believed to be reduction of doubles to a six-game set, with the singles decided in a a super tiebreaker if there is a split, with the goal of shortening the matches." Does anyone else think this is ridiculous!?

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Solving a problem that doesn't exist, this idea. Hopefully it's just a baseless internet rumor.

I'm with MikeJ. This would ruin college tennis as we know it. These gusya re fit, they can play 3 sets.

It's not like we have to worry about shortening matches for TV time. So absurd.

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Totally agree.

I played college tennis back in the '90s, when the doubles lines were also best of three sets. I had a hard time buying into it when they shortened the doubles to a pro set. Therefore, shortening the doubles even more, and reducing singles to a third set breaker if they split? No way!!!

Why would they do this? As you mentioned, it's not like they have television restrictions to deal with. Besides, entire tennis meets usually last around 3 hours, which is about the amount of time a football or basketball game lasts. And it's not like tennis players are getting serious injuries like athletes do in other sports... so why change anything?

I don't know if you are a tennis player in college but probably no. If public could vote in this issue I think is a big no against this rule. If college tennis players could vote in this issue, I think it would be much more divided. I am not against the rule, because a tough 3 set match plus a doubles is not so easy. And if is back to back is much tougher. If we played only singles, I would be totally against the rule. If it's changed, I like it. If isn't, nothing much changes, just to be prepared to grind a little more. That's all

I believe these rumored changes are only for the team portion of the NCAA tournament and not for the individual singles and doubles tournaments or regular season matches. Not that I agree with them, but I can imagine why they would be talked about in terms of wear and tear on the players (especially the top players who are playing in the individual singles or doubles tournaments as well as the team tournament) and in terms of making the matches more TV/spectator-friendly.

Men's regular season matches normally don't take very long. Perhaps these should be talked about for shrotening women's regular season matches.

This has to pass the ITA Committee in December hopefully common sense will rule, just horrible changes made by idiots in suits with no clue.

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What is the "ITA Committee" that you mention? Is it part of the NCAA, or are you just talking about the ITA? This is an NCAA rumor. The ITA controls everything except the NCAA team and individual championships in May. The NCAA controls those, and they can change those tournaments without ITA approval.

I'm not a fan of this in any way. I like how it operates now. The coaches already have the option of playing a match tb if the overall team match is decided. I believe they have liberty to play match tb's in non-conference matches already if both coaches agree.

If anything, I'd change doubles to the pro format of no-ad scoring with a match tb when splits happen. But, the 8-game pro sets are working fine. Nothing is broken so it would be a shame to try to "fix" the college game.

From what I have read it sounds like this is a done deal. What in the heck is going on with our sport? It is so frustrating. Baseball has 4 hour games, Soccer can go 3 hours with overtime and half time. golf 18 holes is 4 hours. What is the problem?

What is the "ITA Committee" that you mention? Is it part of the NCAA, or are you just talking about the ITA? This is an NCAA rumor. The ITA controls everything except the NCAA team and individual championships in May. The NCAA controls those, and they can change those tournaments without ITA approval.

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The ITA Committee would rule on whether to implement the rules into effect for ITA Matches during the regular season, not sure very many coaches would be happy about this, they do not meet until December and then many times rush the new rulings into place for January competition

I don't know if you are a tennis player in college but probably no. If public could vote in this issue I think is a big no against this rule. If college tennis players could vote in this issue, I think it would be much more divided. I am not against the rule, because a tough 3 set match plus a doubles is not so easy. And if is back to back is much tougher. If we played only singles, I would be totally against the rule. If it's changed, I like it. If isn't, nothing much changes, just to be prepared to grind a little more. That's all

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Many teams have players that play singles and doubles only. A proset of doubles followed by a singles match really should not be that difficult for a highly conditioned athlete. The 8 game doubles proset generally takes about an hour. Then followed by a 10-20 min. break. There's a reason why senior tennis players gravitate to doubles, pssst, it's not that physically demanding.

Manny Diaz was blasting this on Twitter last night. When one of the most successful and prominent coaches in college tennis is publicly calling out the changes, why is no one at the NCAA listening? I'm SURE he's not the only one.

This isn't about conditioning or wear on the players. In all of the college tennis matches I've watched, I don't know that I've seen more than a handful of times a players being just down right exhausted in a 3rd set. They are in shape. They play matches twice a week during the season usually, and every other day during the NCAA tournament. It's not THAT much tennis.

I wish I could go back and see a game by game of all the NCAA tournament matches to see how this rule change would have wildly swung the results. And you better believe it would have caused a different outcome.

It's not that radical of a change. It's just totally unnecessary. Why water down the final product? It's not going to turn me off of college tennis, but I'd be very disappointed to see it come to fruition nonetheless.

I talked to someone today. A former player. He said that his whole game in college was about being fit and a fighter. All about breaking down the opponent. With the new format, players like him can forget being effective.

I thought the problem of long matches was solved when they went to the 7-point match, with 3 doubles pro sets counting as 1 point.

Remember before that, they played 9-point matches. 6 best-of-3 singles, followed by 3 best-of-3 doubles.

Yes, some dual matches can very long and the disparity in length of team matches is large. But, that's the nature of any sport that does not utilize a clock. You can't ever guarantee that a match won't be "too long". Deal with it.

I guess by making further reductions, they are at least reducing the length of the longest matches. But, I think it's ridiculous. Really, one set of doubles for each position? I guess, you could argue that since doubles is worth one point, playing a traditional set at each position simply equals a traditional best-of-3 match spread over 3 courts. But, it's just not the same.

As far as 10-point 3rd set breakers are concerned, you could leave it up to the coaches to utilize them during the regular season if they agree. Maybe a match started late due to weather and the visiting team really needs to get home. Maybe weather was really hot for a weekend of duals and coaches want to preserve their players for the rest of the season. That's fine. But, when it comes to playing for titles, I think they should play out the 3rd set.

Plus you will hurt college tennis's quality. Top players will be much much less likely to go to college due to the format because they have sights on the pros. It will be terrible for preparing them for the pros.

Here’s just a few examples of how the new changes would have affected this year’s NCAAs.
You likely wouldn’t have had a moment like this after tremendous 3 set wins at #1 and #3 to clinch a lengthy team match.
Pepperdine Head Coach Adam Steinberg
“Incredible. What a great college match. If you know me, I’m not usually at a loss for words, but I’m a little bit. Incredible match against such a great team. I’m so proud of the guys. We’ve never really been in this situation with this team in front of a crowd like that and how they handled that.
“It feels as good. It really does. I said after the match, ‘Are we only in the semis?” It’s such an honor to play here. Obviously winning the national championship against that team was incredible and winning your last match is probably no feeling like that, but this comes mighty close. I’m just so happy. I have such a great group of guys and I wanted this moment for them. Its definitely up there. I’m very happy for my players.
#7 PEPPERDINE (27-6) def. #2 GEORGIA (26-3), 4-3 - Henry Feild Stadium
Head Coaches: Manuel Diaz (GEORGIA) and Adam Steinberg (PEPPERDINE)
Doubles (Order of finish: 1,2,3)
1. #15 Alex Llompart/Finn Tearney (PEPPERDINE) def. Sadio Doumbia/Hernus Pieters (GEORGIA), 8-1
2. #41 Nathan Pasha/Ignacio Taboada (GEORGIA) def. Sebastian Fanselow/Jenson Turner (PEPPERDINE), 8-5
3. Hugh Clarke/David Sofaer (PEPPERDINE) def. KU Singh/Wil Spencer (GEORGIA), 9-7
Singles (Order of finish: 4,2,5,6,1,3*)
1. #8 Sebastian Fanselow (PEPPERDINE) def. #11 Wil Spencer (GEORGIA), 6-3, 3-6, 6-4
2. #19 KU Singh (GEORGIA) def. #30 Finn Tearney (PEPPERDINE), 7-6(3), 6-2
3. Alex Llompart (PEPPERDINE) def. #32 Sadio Doumbia (GEORGIA), 7-6(2), 6-7(2), 6-4
4. #52 Ignacio Taboada (GEORGIA) def. #109 Mousheg Hovhannisyan (PEPPERDINE), 6-1, 6-3
5. Nathan Pasha (GEORGIA) def. Hugh Clarke (PEPPERDINE), 4-6, 6-3, 6-1
6. Jenson Turner (PEPPERDINE) def. #60 Hernus Pieters (GEORGIA), 6-4, 7-6(4)
The semis would also have been greatly affected. Just take a look at the Duke/Florida girls match, where Duke won the 1st set in 5 of 6 singles matches. Who knows what happens in a Match TB?
Florida Head Coach Roland Thornqvist
“I don’t know how we won that match. Duke is one heck of a team. The first hour in singles, they were beating us to death, I thought it got to us. I was really concerned that we were going to wear down. Somehow we found a way. Somehow we found a way to get one of (four and five). I was really proud of our players. WE were really down and out, but found a way to get back in the match.”
Singles (Order of finish:2,3,6,1,4,5*)
1. #2 Beatrice Capra (DUKE) def. #1 Allie Will (FLORIDA), 6-4, 6-4
2. #9 Lauren Embree (FLORIDA) def. #110 Ester Goldfeld (DUKE), 6-4, 6-1
3. #21 Joanna Mather (FLORIDA) def. #59 Hanna Mar (DUKE), 2-6, 6-2 6-0
4. #85 Rachel Kahan (DUKE) def. #61 Sofie Oyen (FLORIDA), 6-3, 5-7, 6-2
5. #79 Alex Cercone (FLORIDA) vs. #66 Mary Clayton (DUKE), 5-7, 6-4, 6-3
6. #97 Monica Turewicz (DUKE) def. Olivia Janowicz (FLORIDA), 6-1, 4-6, 6-3

And, this doesn’t even include the two men’s semifinals with several 3 set matches. In particular, Daniel Nguyen diffused Novikov’s bombs that had blown him off the court in the 1st set. He slowly wore down Novikov and was able to hold on for a dramatic 3 set victory. "The people got their money's worth. That was a long evening and an amazing match," USC head coach Peter Smith said. "UCLA showed a lot of heart. We had two guys come out and play incredible tennis (Johnson and Sarmiento). And we had one guy play incredibly clutch in (Daniel Nguyen). It was pretty special."

I don't like the change, but this will not be the end of college tennis as we know it. Again, this is only for the NCAA championship team draw and not for every dual match in the regualr season

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I don't see the point of this at all...don't they abandon all the matches as soon as it's over? So most of time, that long three setter never finishes anyway?

But that said, so the once and while when you have a true war between NCAA teams in the NCAA tourney, involving players in the biggest match of their lives...instead of letting them gut out something that they'll be telling their kids about 20 years from now, they play a virtual rock-paper-scissors to decide it all - taking all the guts and grind out of the equation.

Upside for those who whine about foreign players: Fewer top juniors and foreign players who have pro potential will want to play NCAA...so now weaker players will have better shots at college scholarships.

The ITA Committee would rule on whether to implement the rules into effect for ITA Matches during the regular season, not sure very many coaches would be happy about this, they do not meet until December and then many times rush the new rulings into place for January competition

Here’s just a few examples of how the new changes would have affected this year’s NCAAs.

[truncated - but lots of awesome examples]

How many “special” matches are just two sets and end in match TBs?

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excellent post - i don't get excited about college tennis for the matches that end in 2.5 hours, it's the wars like those matches that make this sport so special

those all end immediately if this change happens

yes, there will still be "exciting" matches that come down to a few points, in fact that will happen even more often, but it will all feel fake to me

imagine a match like singh vs clayton a couple years ago...clayton wins the first set then sanam turns it up a gear and progressively takes it to him in sets 2 and 3 in front of a wild stanford crowd

under the new rules, the match comes down to a few points simply because clayton got a hot start, throw away the value of sanam's heart and incredible fitness - those will be next to worthless if an opponent gets hot for a few big shots in a TB

There would still be too much variance in match length. Here is a modest proposal:

1) Start all sets at 2-2 to cut them shorter.

2) No-ad scoring, singles and doubles.

3) Doubles only plays to 6 games like singles.

4) Instead of the first to 10 match tiebreakers after split sets in singles, play one of those dramatic 9-point tiebreakers like college did eons ago, and they do today in World Team Tennis. No overtime tiebreakers that way. Sudden death. Get the whole thing over with already.

5) In fact, do all tiebreakers as 9-point sudden death tiebreakers.

This way, the very longest possible singles match would have only 16 games total, plus three of the 9-point tiebreakers. Now we're talking fast matches.

If the above does not work out well, start all sets at 3-3 instead of 2-2.

"I felt like I played as well as I've ever played," said Clayton, trying to hold back tears. "It was this close, one point here, one point there. I just couldn't quite get over the line. I came in expecting to win. I was confident."

"That was probably the most hostile, biggest crowd I've played in front of," Singh said. "Alex is a great player, an experienced player. He likes to use his forehand and he has a solid first serve. When it was 4-4 in the second set I was able to find something extra and the third set was a dogfight."

There would still be too much variance in match length. Here is a modest proposal:

1) Start all sets at 2-2 to cut them shorter.

2) No-ad scoring, singles and doubles.

3) Doubles only plays to 6 games like singles.

4) Instead of the first to 10 match tiebreakers after split sets in singles, play one of those dramatic 9-point tiebreakers like college did eons ago, and they do today in World Team Tennis. No overtime tiebreakers that way. Sudden death. Get the whole thing over with already.

5) In fact, do all tiebreakers as 9-point sudden death tiebreakers.

This way, the very longest possible singles match would have only 16 games total, plus three of the 9-point tiebreakers. Now we're talking fast matches.

If the above does not work out well, start all sets at 3-3 instead of 2-2.

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i think i know your stance well enough on college tennis to know that this post is sarcastic

I feel like a lot of the posters in this thread aren't actually college players, or current juniors...I don't think you guys realize that a hard fought 8-game pro set followed almost immediately by a best of 3 set match can be quite tiring sometimes. A match that ends with a super-breaker can be just as special as a 3 set match. I don't think the doubles should be shortened, anything shorter than an 8 game pro set would be silly. But, I think a super-breaker would add a lot more tension and excitement to the game, as well as shortening matches. It would also give lower ranked teams that don't have 6 blue chips in their lineups a better shot at pulling off an upset if the "better" team was having an off day.

I don't think you guys realize that a hard fought 8-game pro set followed almost immediately by a best of 3 set match can be quite tiring sometimes. A match that ends with a super-breaker can be just as special as a 3 set match.

But, I think a super-breaker would add a lot more tension and excitement to the game, as well as shortening matches. It would also give lower ranked teams that don't have 6 blue chips in their lineups a better shot at pulling off an upset if the "better" team was having an off day.

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1) yes, i'm aware that can be tiring...GOOD! tennis is a physical, tiring sport that brings fitness and heart into play...again, GOOD!

2) it adds artificially created "excitement", yes...playing one point for each of the nine matches would be "exciting" and add "tension"...but it's not the sport I love

3) again, if we're interested in spicing up the draw with upsets rather than seeing which team has more heart and fitness and is the better team at the end of a war, play one point for each match, you'll see plenty of upsets

if someone finds me a coach or player of a top 20 team that supports this change, i will be shocked! (as much as this poster seems to think only people who don't play the game oppose the change) just one such coach or player, find him for me!

I feel like a lot of the posters in this thread aren't actually college players, or current juniors...I don't think you guys realize that a hard fought 8-game pro set followed almost immediately by a best of 3 set match can be quite tiring sometimes. A match that ends with a super-breaker can be just as special as a 3 set match. I don't think the doubles should be shortened, anything shorter than an 8 game pro set would be silly. But, I think a super-breaker would add a lot more tension and excitement to the game, as well as shortening matches. It would also give lower ranked teams that don't have 6 blue chips in their lineups a better shot at pulling off an upset if the "better" team was having an off day.

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I'm a former player. I played in the stone age when all matches were best of 9, 2 out of 3 sets for both singles and doubles. If we got tired in a match and lost on fitness, you had heck to pay in conditioning the next few days. Not one player/teammate cried about it. There was no such thing as a match TB, or polyester string (we used Kevlar) and I wore canvas Nike's because they were free.

Back then DI played No-Ad. Ask UGA about No-Ad and their loss to Lander. Then ask why they don't play No-Ad any more.

I feel like a lot of the posters in this thread aren't actually college players, or current juniors....

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Now that's an understatement, or they haven't raised a solid junior or college player so there are a lot of holes in the big picture of things discussed. Sure, some were, but many could only dream of college play, myself included. Which is why so much on this forum is completely off. Entertaining, but inaccurate. It's like eavesdropping on lunch break at "the factory," but instead of hearing yammering about how Sunday's football game should have been played, this is about tennis. Just hard to find a bunch of tennis fans at a single workplace, so we gather here. The college players I know that have seen this site laugh at it, think it's a bunch of bs, it's so bad. But I think we all know that.

Now that's an understatement, or they haven't raised a solid junior or college player so there are a lot of holes in the big picture of things discussed. Sure, some were, but many could only dream of college play, myself included. Which is why so much on this forum is completely off. Entertaining, but inaccurate. It's like eavesdropping on lunch break at "the factory," but instead of hearing yammering about how Sunday's football game should have been played, this is about tennis. Just hard to find a bunch of tennis fans at a single workplace, so we gather here. The college players I know that have seen this site laugh at it, think it's a bunch of bs, it's so bad. But I think we all know that.

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The college and top junior players I know think the NCAA proposal is terrible, and the people here mostly agree with them, and the college coaches seems to agree as well. So this board cannot be too bad in that respect, right?

According to Zoo Tennis, "changes are believed to be reduction of doubles to a six-game set, with the singles decided in a a super tiebreaker if there is a split, with the goal of shortening the matches." Does anyone else think this is ridiculous!?

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Yea, this will be just like champions tour with old men that doesn't have the stamina to go 3 sets. Except that this is college tennis with many players trying to get themselves ready for the pro tour. at least with hopes of joining the pro tour anyway.

I don't have a Twitter account, but I follow some Twitter accounts via bookmarks to keep on top of tennis news. We have had postings today that vehemently opposed the proposed changes from the following:

The college and top junior players I know think the NCAA proposal is terrible, and the people here mostly agree with them, and the college coaches seems to agree as well. So this board cannot be too bad in that respect, right?

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you beat me to this post

now we have a couple people on here saying "if we were only more in the know we'd agree with it....etc, etc, etc"

that's the only uninformed bs in this discussion

the people i see speaking up like manny diaz say this will "kill our college game as we know it today"...and check out this article to see what top junior coaches such as frank salazar and vesa ponnka (a badass i was lucky enough to train under for a few years) have to say about the third set tb:http://www.tennisrecruiting.net/article.asp?id=1479

The college and top junior players I know think the NCAA proposal is terrible, and the people here mostly agree with them, and the college coaches seems to agree as well. So this board cannot be too bad in that respect, right?

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Ya Clark, there are certainly things that are good about the board, like it can be a good source of info on new things (like this change). Maybe my post was too broad-stroke. But when you are or have been on the inside of a junior issue, are or have been a coach, or know a junior or college player well, or know a college team closely, or work within USTA or ITF, or at an academy or other situations that get you on the inside of some of this stuff, - one can see just how much posted here is wrong, so it's hard not to invalidate the whole thing. But certainly entertaining at times.

p.s. I loved the reply about tennis in the stone age....reminded me of... "in my day we walked to and from school 5 miles in the snow uphill in both directions."

I don't have a Twitter account, but I follow some Twitter accounts via bookmarks to keep on top of tennis news. We have had postings today that vehemently opposed the proposed changes from the following:

Lots of mid-major college players I have not heard of who talk about wanting to finish their careers under the old rules, etc., but also lots of college and junior players I have heard of (Caroline Price, Emina Bektas, George Goldhoff et al.)

According to Zoo Tennis, "changes are believed to be reduction of doubles to a six-game set, with the singles decided in a a super tiebreaker if there is a split, with the goal of shortening the matches." Does anyone else think this is ridiculous!?

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If this is legit it would make college tennis even less relevant than it is now. I know I'm dating myself but when I played college tennis we played best of 3 sets for both singles and doubles--so sometimes we'd play 6 sets a match. Each match counted as a full point so you had to win 5 matches to win a dual match. Our team won an NCAA championship and we EARNED it. Seems to me there is a direct correlation between the demise of college tennis and the shortening of the doubles matches. This would only diminish college tennis further. Next they'll be using World Team Tennis scoring.

If this is legit it would make college tennis even less relevant than it is now. I know I'm dating myself but when I played college tennis we played best of 3 sets for both singles and doubles--so sometimes we'd play 6 sets a match. Each match counted as a full point so you had to win 5 matches to win a dual match. Our team won an NCAA championship and we EARNED it. Seems to me there is a direct correlation between the demise of college tennis and the shortening of the doubles matches. This would only diminish college tennis further. Next they'll be using World Team Tennis scoring.

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actually world team scoring doesnt' sound half bad. can they get the cheerleaders in there too ?

1) is starting to blow up - nice work evan king and van overbeek, hopefully twitter and fb lead to some real organized opposition, though gonna be tough to overcome the monster that is the NCAA

2) is hilarious - feddie you'll be glad to know gibbs and ahn have some of the funniest posts to date - i do not oppose their suggestion to put female college tennis in bikinis to follow the NCAAs attempt to gain more fans